The cost of the World Trade Center Memorial and its associated projects is approaching $1 billion – far higher than anyone has previously disclosed, Mayor Bloomberg revealed yesterday.

“This is a memorial that will cost – by the time you get done, depending what you count – close to $1 billion,” the mayor declared during a City Hall press conference.

“To put that in perspective, the Vietnam memorial cost $9 million or $14 million – including fund-raising – a number like that.”

Bloomberg described the entire project as “phenomenally ambitious” and “very expensive,” words that made some state officials shudder.

“It seems to show a lack of confidence,” said one state official.

A mayoral aide countered: “I think the mayor was just stating facts. I don’t think he was raising doubts.”

Moreover, Bloomberg indicated the city wasn’t in a position to pick up any portion of the tab for maintaining the memorial after it opens in late 2009.

“There are still questions who is going to pay maintenance on a site like this going forward,” Bloomberg said.

“The city has lots of other obligations, and if the plan requires the city to come up with money, we’re going to have to work through that. It is going to be a real challenge and, hopefully, the people who are running this are up to this.”

The World Trade Center Memorial Foundation has estimated the cost of the 6-acre memorial at up to $331 million and a memorial museum below ground level at $162 million – a total of $493 million.

Mayoral aides said Bloomberg’s $1 billion estimate also included the “welcome center,” a performing-arts center and “shared costs for underground infrastructure with the Port Authority.”

The welcome center is expected to come in at $82 million, a bill the state has said it would pay.

The arts center already has a $50 million commitment from the Lower Manhattan Development Corp. Its cost has been estimated at $200 million to $300 million.

Officials familiar with the project’s cost conceded that Bloomberg’s numbers were in the ballpark, but they say he’s including the price of building the foundation and other below-ground infrastructure that hadn’t been included in earlier public estimates.

“Our analysis indicates that the cost for the memorial and the memorial museum will be just under $500 million as predicted,” said John Gallagher, a spokesman for the LMDC. “This figure does not include the [welcome center], the performing-arts center and infrastructure costs.”

The foundation has raised $102 million privately and has secured another $200 million from the LMDC. The memorial fund-raising goal is $500 million, not including the LMDC grants.

Construction of the memorial and museum is expected to begin sometime in March, with an opening date by Sept. 11, 2009.

“Raising money’s not easy,” Bloomberg concluded. “No one should ever think that it is.”

But one source in state government said the goals set for the memorial are “very doable. A lot of the big players have not yet stepped up.”

In a related development, Reps. Carolyn Maloney and Vito Fossella announced that Dr. John Howard, director of the National Institute for Occupational Health & Safety, would serve as the federal coordinator to oversee the response to Ground Zero health concerns.

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Remembrances

How WTC memorial would stack up against other tribute sites

World Trade Center Memorial and Museum

Where: New York City

Description: 6 acres at Ground Zero, including a tree-lined plaza, memorial-viewing areas and a museum descending 70 feet to bedrock

Expected to open: 2009

Cost: $1B

Oklahoma City National Memorial

Where: Oklahoma City, Okla.

Opened: 2000

Description: 3.3 acres on the site of the former Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building; built to honor the 168 victims killed in the 1995 bombing by Timothy McVeigh

Cost: $29.1M

Vietnam Veterans Memorial

Where: Washington, D.C.

Opened: 1982

Description: 250-foot-long black granite wall – the stark design was controversial among some veterans, who insisted a more traditional statue of three combat soldiers be added $8.4M